September 10, 2008

"how deeply unaware I am of the movement of time"

someday i'm gonna curate my own EV show cuz they never explained for
instance why all the bases of lampposts were covered in shards of
ceramics--they didn't have pictures of all these great bottle trees and
stufed animal sulptures that used to be on ave b and ca 6th and ave
c....and they didn't have videos by tom rubinitz who made the first
video of wigstock but died of aids and they had things about pyramid
but not boy bar...or lots of other things like these great videos that
exist of rupaul as starbooty--some of those were made when they were
still in atlanta but i was happy to see ann magnusson and photos by a
friend of mine ande whyland--she used to bartend at boy bar and she and
her girlfriend dany were like original club 57 people and i used to
write this horrible nightlife column but the best column i think that
we ever did was when we interviewed them and got an oral history of
nightlife on the lower east side....and the EV show had a "back to
life" issue of my comrade which used to be a great zine and you'd flip
it over and the other side was sister! edited by dany but the issue at
the new museum didn't have that...which was too bad...but all in all
i'm glad i got my butt down there finally cuz now i have richard kern
to add to my messy influence list...and some of the arch connelly
things covered in beads were great...i love the intro text the EV was
at its heyday 1981-1987--i'm like typical i missed it by one year...oh
yeah and no rocknroll fag bar which is where night of 1000 stevies
started.. no act up....see that's the thing about the EV that the show
missed sort of-- it isn't the art objects per se that are important but
rather that people tried to live their lives as art...and so it was
about people and not about paintings or graffiti or whatever...and so
much of it you had to experience like you had to experience karen
finley live...i will never forget seeing her on valentine's day at
pyramid naked and covered in chocolate and throwing out those hearts
with dumb phrases on them into the audience....yelling fuck you...it
was a moment...and now it's a memory and how many moments have passed
into memories and I guess that's how you know you are aging but it is
odd how deeply unaware I am of the movement of time…probably explains
why I'm always late…

Please post your remembrances of Sydney in the comments section of this post, or the next one, or the next one, hopefully into infinity... As the comments come in, we'll post them into main posts as well. Please join us in remembering and celebrating Sydney.

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Yeah, I was sort of sideswiped by that too. I went to see it not knowing anything about it, and was aghast the entire time. It's hard to watch, for so many reasons, the least of which was my being embodied by the clueless boyfriend.

{daisycyst: when you wrote: " I am sorry but I still believe if someone made a story about your life that they would change all the names.", were you referring to High Art? Because if you were, I can tell you, Sydney was right.}

L T thanks for setting me straight. Well Sydney better late than never. All apologies my friend, once again you got me.

daisycyst: when you wrote: " I am sorry but I still believe if someone made a story about your life that they would change all the names.", were you referring to High Art? Because if you were, I can tell you, Sydney was right.

Happy Birthday Sydney. I am of the mind that you can receive messages. I hope that you had a good one, I am not sure what time zone you are in now so it may be over or the party may still be raging on. I would like to think that the day started out with cocktails and chit chat with Jackie S. Later Dorothy Parker joined you and Edie was there and Diana V. and Coco and Gia, (John C. was the bartender), anyway you strong minded women decided to revive the vicious circle. I imagine you talked and talked and leveled sharped edged commentary about anything and everything. At least I hope that is how you spent your day. It is my hope that you can really do that sort of thing when you move to the great beyond. I miss you lots and continue to send only the kindest thoughts your way.

Franny, sorry to see you go. We had many memorable enchanted walks through text. Even though in one of the last ones the whole wilderness burned down, most everyone still came out relatively unscathed. See you sky-writing among the stars, or bowling for dollars among the great lanes of heaven, whichever the case may be.

The Scarlet O’Hara in me has put this off. Please excuse this post, as it will likely be a little bit cryptic and a lot self-indulgent. Sydney once told me that talking to me was like talking to herself and that I was her thought doppelganger. I liked that. In a superficial sense it was true. However, I could never display the incredible bravery or the frustrating level of cowardice this woman affected. The thing is there are no heroes of villains in life, just interesting, imperfect people that if you are really lucky you can care about. I liked Sydney a lot. I loved her trademark, hearty laugh; or passing hours chatting online and commenting about everything under the sun. She challenged me and kicked me in the behind whether I needed it or not. I found myself frustrated by her drawing false comparisons. I didn’t enjoy hearing the difference between shyness and being a misanthrope. That said, I wouldn’t have traded it and would love to opportunity to have such conversation back. More than anything she made me laugh and plan the impossible. I am sorry that frustration or pride made me lose touch. Unfortunately I am not a person who doesn’t have regrets. There are many things that I regret and I will miss and am sorry about. I will miss not being able to plot our water polo training for the next Olympics. I will miss not having her tell me why I wasted my time with law school. I regret not calling the last time I was in Gotham. I am sorry but I still believe if someone made a story about your life that they would change all the names. I will miss mix tape exchanges. I regret that I will not be able to tell you how my plans for the cable network have progressed. I will miss mulling over our latest obsessions. I am sorry that I can’t discuss the Amy Winehouse love child of Shirley Bassey, Peter O’ Toole theory with you. Mostly though, I miss you and regret not being able to talk to you. Sydney you definitely made the world a more interesting place and I am sorry for everyone at large who will miss your commentary.